The Muppets Mayhem (2023)
The Muppets Mayhem is a 2023 10-episode series on Disney+ starring the house band from the original Muppet Show, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
Nora, one of two employees at a failing record label, aspires to be a music mogul in her own right, despite being a lowly assistant who is current crashing at her sister Hannah’s pad. While shredding papers, Nora discovers the Electric Mayhem once accepted a large cash advance from the label in exchange for an album it never delivered. (The band promised to deliver the band after their tour ended, and then went on tour for 45 years.) Nora, with help from Hannah, music mogul and ex-boyfriend JJ, and Mayhem superfan Moog, plan to wrangle in the Electric Mayhem, squeeze a debut album out of them, and reap the rewards.
The glue holding the show together is the Electric Mayhem, who ironically can’t hold anything together. The six-piece band, consisting of Dr. Teeth, Sgt. Floyd Pepper, Janice, Zoot, Lips, and Animal, can’t seem to focus for long or get much of anything done. The show revolves around Nora attempting to wrangle the band and drag them into the 2020s by arranging sessions with modern producers, giving them cellphones, and introducing them to social media.
Like many (most?) of these series, this 10-episode series would have worked better as a two-hour movie. To fill the time, viewers are “treated” to looooong side excursions, like the episode in which the Mayhem spend the night in the desert to find themselves, ingest a bag of marshmallows 30 years past their expiration date, and spend nearly half of a 22-minute episode tripping and having hallucinations in a way-too-long Doors-inspired segment. In another episode, due to a misunderstanding Animal thinks he is no longer needed, and spends half an episode at an employment agency applying for work (his tenure answering phones is short lived). On Family Guy these would be 5-10 second clips, and in a normal length film they would get two minutes, but in today’s episodic format they become entire episodes that are slightly entertaining but ultimately don’t move the needle forward.
With Adam F. Goldberg (from the Goldbergs) at the help you know this is going to be a nostalgia fest, and true to form there are classic Muppet references galore. More than that, with Disney money comes Disney connections, and the show has more cameos and licensed music than it can handle. Through the ten episodes, the Electric Mayhem run into Billy Corgan, Morgan Freeman, Cheech and Chong, Kevin Smith, Peter Jackson, Ziggy Marley, Ryan Seacrest, Paula Abdul, Weird Al, Danny Trejo, and dozens more. There’s also a steady stream of appearances for younger viewers, like deadmau5, Charlamagne The God, Lil Nas X, and Zedd. This huge spread guarantees you’ll recognize some of these people, but unlikely to recognize (or care about) them all. Some of these cameos are so forced that they feel cringy, like when Susanna Hoffs (former lead singer of the Bangles) drops by and not only has to introduce herself but admit that Lips is the one who “taught her to walk like an Egyptian.”
There’s a price to pay for that kind of access and it comes in the form of product placement. The band makes an excursion to shop for groceries all to set up a bit where Animal fills a shopping cart with Fritos, and then says “Fritos!” ten times. Restaurants, businesses, and products are constantly being mentioned. Sgt. Floyd Pepper spends a few seconds coming up with a new jingle for Bennigan’s. In an establishing shot, the camera pans down from the Chateau Marmont sign to catch the band’s bus driving by. Animal plays with a Simon toy for 30 seconds, during which the band says “Simon” 20 times. Animal gets a job at Teppanyaki Terrace, works around people in Teppanyaki Terrace uniforms, and appears on a Teppanyaki Terrace billboard. Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are frequently mentioned by name.
The series has 10 half hour episodes for Nora to succeed, for the love triangle between Nora, JJ, and Moog to get resolved, and the Electric Mayhem to record an album, all of which we know is going to happen. The final episode ends with the Electric Mayhem heading out on tour, which they had been doing for the past 45 years before the show began. It’s possible this could lead to a second season, but more likely it’ll lead to even more Disney+ series. What we need next is a 10-episode series about Fozzy the Bear’s journey through the world of stand up comedy, or how Sam the Eagle left the forest and found the Muppet Show, or…